The Hobbit Within

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Have you ever read an epic adventure and found yourself wishing that you might be part of it?

Some years ago, a friend of mine wrote a reflection on The Hobbit and the call to adventure. While reading his words, it occurred to me that I often forget how much drab ordinariness is in an adventure. I find myself often longing for some kind of novel circumstance that will break into the everyday pattern of my habits and obligations, whisking me off into whatever God might have planned for me "next." Inevitably the idea of adventure stirs up images of amazing feats, daring risks, and things (or people) worth fighting for.

When I dream of being caught up into such things, my memory seems to conveniently omit the days of endless trudging, cold nights, damp cloaks, aching bodies, and dry, tasteless food that almost every hero or heroine is obliged to endure. Adventure is impossible without inconvenience, without suffering, without a little bit of misery. And yet we long for adventure, while at the same time despising the inconveniences, sufferings, and miseries of our everyday life. How easy it is to remember the great victories and forget all the little things that made them possible! In fact, the drudgeries of adventure are often what convince us to give up, rather than see things through to the final pages. And they may even convince us to never begin the adventure at all.

May the hobbit in us all have the courage to take that first step out onto the road, and allow the greatest Author of all time to write us an adventure, even when the first few (endless) miles--and some of the places in between--seem rather drab indeed.

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